


Cut-Throat Sensibility

by ladyphlogiston



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Lucius Malfoy is good at his job, Minor Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy, POV First Person, Plans, Quirrellmort - Freeform, Voldemort (Harry Potter) Dies, War is bad for business
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-19 23:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18980848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyphlogiston/pseuds/ladyphlogiston
Summary: If I had come across this shortly after the Dark Lord's fall, I have no doubt that I would have immediately rushed to seek him out and restore him to power. But I had by this point learned the power of patience. I could wait and consider how best to use this knowledge.





	Cut-Throat Sensibility

**Author's Note:**

> Despite his protestations to the contrary, I have always assumed Lucius Malfoy had no desire to have Voldemort rise to power again. This time, he got some warning

It has been ten years since the fall of the Dark Lord.

At first there was blind panic. We expected him to return to us, but our Marks suddenly faded away and his magic abruptly ceased to thrum in our veins. We scattered, directionless.

The blind panic faded over the following days, to be replaced by a steadier, more certain panic. The people were no longer cowed. We had staked everything—our reputations, our fortunes, our families—on the Dark Lord's victory. With his disappearance, we were desperate.

The Dark Lord had never encouraged us to help or trust each other, and we did not do so now. Some of us crept away, disappearing into slums or distant isolation where the Aurors could not find them. Those of us who tried to fight were quickly killed or captured, overwhelmed by Aurors or betrayed by family who finally saw a way out of the nightmare. As for me, I fought also, but with words and money rather than open defiance.

The Trials were long and agonizing, but I won out. The Malfoy fortune was sorely depleted by the twin demands of the Dark Lord and the Ministry, but I was safe, with my wife and child.

For a time, then, I searched. The Dark Lord had left his imprint on my mind, and I desperately missed the thrill of power and the wild glee of dark revels. I threw myself into the study of immortality. The Dark Lord had boasted time and time again that he was immortal, that he was immortal beyond all conception of those who had come before him. If I could determine what he had done, what method he had used, where he might be now...but I could not. He had done too much, and his magics had tangled together beyond my ability to unravel them.

Eventually I abandoned my search and went back to restoring the House of Malfoy. I invested wisely, and our fortune began to grow again. I gained in honor and power, using my old skills in flattery and misdirection and manipulation to position myself among those who were respected.

It was years later that I entered my sister-in-law's vault at Gringotts. I had petitioned for power of attorney, that the fortune there might not lie fallow while its owners were imprisoned, and had eventually been granted access. I went in to assess the contents, and also to search out certain deeds for properties which might be of use to some of my enterprises.

As soon as I entered, my attention was caught by a goblet I did not recognize, prominently displayed in a place of honor against the back wall. I examined it closely, and I finally had my answer: The Dark Lord had made a horcrux.

If I had come across this shortly after the Dark Lord's fall, I have no doubt that I would have immediately rushed to seek him out and restore him to power. But I had by this point learned the power of patience. I could wait and consider how best to use this knowledge.

As I considered, it occurred to me that the feeling of the horcrux magic was distantly familiar. It took time to remember, but eventually I dug deep into the hidden safe under our drawing room and found the book which the Dark Lord had entrusted to me, decades ago when I was young and foolish. He had said at the time merely that it was a way to open the Chamber of Secrets, but now I knew better. It too was a horcrux. He had made more than one, then. Possibly many more.

At this evidence of the Dark Lord's power, I felt an echo of the old thrill. He truly had gone beyond the ken of man in his pursuit of immortality. And yet, it did not call to me as once it had. I had learned to enjoy other forms of power: the wielding of money, and of pointed words, and of hoarded secrets. I had the Wizarding world exactly where I wanted it, after all, and any who defied me soon found themselves wishing they hadn't.

And what could the Dark Lord offer? The one who restored him to power would likely enjoy his favor for a time, but the Dark Lord did not share power, and he had become more capricious as he had gained in power. (My father told me once, when he was drunk, that the Dark Lord had been a charismatic and clearheaded leader of the circle of friends who were the first Death Eaters, but had grown increasingly volatile even before I met him and entered his service.)

The Dark Lord would make the old revels of murder and mayhem common again, and they were enjoyable enough, but there was no reason I could not now visit a Muggle or Mudblood household occasionally, if the mood struck. If anything, I could enjoy it more fully, drawing out exquisite torture without Bella and the Carrows panting and slobbering everywhere.

And the Dark Lord would demand my service, night and day. I enjoyed my evenings as they were now, with fine wine and excellent food and the elegant companionship of my beautiful wife and our chosen friends. My investments were flourishing, and no one was making excessive demands on the estate. I dropped in at the Ministry or Hogwarts or the Prophet as I pleased, molding the future to suit myself. My life was a good one.

So I did not, in the end, seek out the Dark Lord. I left the cup in the vault. I placed the book back in the hidden safe, now wrapped in security spells to prevent anyone from accidentally taking it up. I turned back to my business, and my business flourished.

But still the doubt lingered, in the back of my mind. Wondering what might happen, where the Dark Lord might be.

I began making preparations of a different sort. Importing basilisk venom from Korea was expensive, but straightforward. Research into how to contain a wraith took longer, especially as I dared not employ others in the task.

The years passed. I made my preparations and set them aside. I grew in wealth and honors and influence. My son, Draco, grew as well, and in the course of time he went to Hogwarts.

It was shortly after Draco went to Hogwarts that my Mark began to get slowly but steadily clearer, and in time, I received the letter I had been dreading. Quirinus Quirrell had been a Muggle Studies teacher. It is a distasteful topic, of course, but Dumbledore insisted on keeping the class and Quirrell was a loyal wizard who carefully kept it from doing much harm. He had left for a year, and now he had returned and was teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts.

He had met the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord had assigned him certain tasks, which he was in the process of fulfilling. The Dark Lord was gaining in strength. Quirrell wanted my help to acquire certain resources in preparation for his return to power.

I acted quickly and decisively. I wrote to Draco, and to several older Slytherins who might be relied upon to answer me carefully and discreetly. Their reports led me to believe that the Dark Lord was possessing Quirrell himself, rather than accompanying him in a container or homunculus as his letter had implied.

The rest was simple. I came to Hogwarts on the appearance of official business, and arranged to meet with Quirrell at the edge of the Forest. I stunned him in the back, and spelled a strong Confounding Potion into his stomach. I levitated him beyond the boundary of the wards, and we apparated away.

I arrived at a plot of land I had purchased some years before. It was a bleak place, surrounded by miles of empty rock. I had carefully set seven concentric circles into the earth, each made of a different protective substance. Blood, salt, wrought iron, water, electrum, obsidian, and sage smoke. Nothing could escape through the circles.

I placed Quirrell and the Dark Lord in the center of the circles, and cast Fiendfyre.

The next day I destroyed the horcruxes I had, and took my wife to dinner in Paris. Business was good.


End file.
